We reached our first port on the third day of our voyage, arriving at the French Caribbean island of St Barthélemy outside the capital city of Gustavia. In French, St Barthélemy is truncated to Saint-Barth, while much of the rest of the Caribbean and the U.S. calls it simply Saint Barts.

Gustavia, St Barthélemy

If it looks from the photos above that there are a lot of very expensive yachts here, that’s because we just happened to hit St. Barts during the annual Bucket Regatta yacht race. More on that later, but first let’s take a quick look around Gustavia:

A few years ago Ursula and I had the distinct pleasure of cruising aboard Holland America’s smallest ship, the MS Prinsendam. And this voyage was for 54 days, involved two transatlantic crossings, and excursions into both the Mediterranean and Black Seas. MS Prinsendam also goes by the nickname Elegant Explorer, as she is often utilized on extended voyages to exotic destinations. MS Prinsendam has room for only about 830 passengers, and when we started this voyage we were but two out of some 650 passengers. Crew compliment is 440. So, how are the accommodations for 54 days? Our cabin was actually quite comfortable by most cruise ship standards, and both the bathroom and closet were larger than most. Here was our cabin:

Our living quarters for 54 days

Cabin bathroom

Cabin closet

We left Fort Lauderdale on March 24 and began our trek southeastward for the first of 27 scheduled ports of call, St Barthélemy, or “St. Barts” as it is often called. Until Wednesday, and St. Barts, here are images from our Fort Lauderdale sail-away: